Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Angel Academy of Art, Florence Syllabus


The Fundamental Programme (Three Years: Nine Trimesters)
Bargue drawing
Copy work begins the programme, and introduces many fundamental concepts and procedures that apply throughout its entirety.
Projects
Three Bargue-copy tonal drawings
(These are from a series of nineteenth-century lithographs by Charles Bargue, designed specifically for this purpose.)
Here, a system of working from the general to the specific is taught, leading to the student’s ability to accurately render shapes and tones. With an understanding of the nature of visual perception, the student learns to see ‘abstractly’ in order to portray ‘realistically’. Each of the Bargue copies is progressively more difficult than the previous one.
CaST drawing
Cast drawing introduces the student to the mechanics of drawing a three-dimensional object on a flat surface. Students are also introduced to the medium of charcoal.
Projects
Cast of body part
Cast of a head from a classical or Renaissance sculpture
The first drawing builds upon the processes used in Bargue drawings but introduces the third dimension. Working with a simple plaster cast of a body part (i.e. ear, nose, or eye), students are taught the sight-size method. Focus is upon creating the illusion of form.
The second cast drawing continues the process introduced in the first; the second cast is a more complex form and challenges students to render a number of details within larger forms while still keeping the overall illusion of three dimensions.
CaST PainTing
Painting from the plaster cast introduces the student to the mechanics and working procedures for painting in oils and sensitizes the student to the perception of colour.
Projects
One grisaille cast painting
Two full-colour cast paintings
The first (grisaille) cast painting is designed to familiarize the student with the oil painting process while working with a range of grey tones in oil. Topics include: underpainting and overpainting procedure, the use of different mediums at different stages of the work, the preparation of the grounds, or surfaces, on which to paint, and the ability to control the colour temperature.

The two full-colour plaster cast paintings reinforce the technical skills covered in the grisaille study and begin to sensitize the student to the new topic of colour. Rendering challenges are increased to focus the student on the difference in texture between the plaster surface of the cast and the wooden surface of the table on which the cast is placed.
STill-liFe PainTing
A four- or six-part progressive series of projects, designed to thoroughly train the students in still-life painting. This lasts three terms (one academic year).
Projects
A bright red drapery (the most difficult colour to paint) and a white, glazed ceramic pot One writing theme in a Tenebrist setup
One kitchen theme, using perishables
One to three still lifes with the student’s choice of themes
Still life is the perfect arena in which to study colour and the creation of the illusions of texture and of three-dimensional space. The student also learns the requirements of painting within a time frame, in order to graduate as a successful professional Realist painter.
work From The live model
First-level drawing (graphite) from the live model
Students are introduced to working from the live model in their first trimester and learn to apply to the nude the principles learned in working from the flat.
Projects
Various short studies
Two fully rendered figure drawings, in graphite, of the live model
Rendering the live model in a drawing requires that the student interprets, rather than copies, nature within a disciplined, yet flexible, artistic system. The uses of gesture, canons of proportion, and the understanding of how light plays across a three-dimensional surface are introduced into the student’s repertoire, as is also the necessity of working under a time deadline.
Second-level drawing from the live model
The second-level figure drawing continues and expands the concepts introduced in the first level, as well as introducing the more demanding discipline of charcoal to the student’s figure drawing.
Projects
One rendered graphite figure study, without background
Several fully rendered charcoal figure drawings of the live model, with vignetted background
Once proportion and gesture have been understood on a small scale in graphite, students graduate to working on a larger scale in charcoal. In charcoal, students continue to work on mastery of gesture and proportion, but a more significant rendering of light and forms is expected.
Drawings in charcoal also include, for the first time, the space that surrounds the figure. Finally, students will come to understand the basics of value design, as the figure and background are reduced, initially, to a maximum of four values within which all further rendering is completed.

Third-level Charcoal drawing from the live model
The third-level charcoal drawing from the live model demands a fine command of the gesture and construction of the human form in order to realize a comprehensive rendering.
Projects
One fully rendered figure drawing of the live model
At this stage, students are directed to explore the subtlest fluctuations of tone in order to make their rendering seem more real, more convincing and alive. Special attention is given to the treatment of bony or tendinous passages, and to a strong effect of light, illuminating the form. The surface texture of flesh is also explored. This final charcoal figure drawing occupies the first half of the student’s fourth trimester (the beginning of the second year); following this halfway point, the student begins to work from the live model with oil paint.
Painting in oils from the live model
As the students continue in their fourth trimester (the beginning of their second year), they begin to paint in oils from the live model.
Projects
Various finished paintings from different poses, each of which lasts 60 hours or more
During this initial period, each student paints a dozen or more short studies from the live model, in order to strengthen specific aspects of the painting process. Each student also paints four or five copies of figure paintings from the old masters.
Throughout the following five trimesters, students strengthen their hard-won abilities with proportion and gesture and explore the subtleties of colour found in the human figure. Figure painting is the most difficult discipline of all; if one can paint the nuances of form and colour on the human figure, one can paint anything.
anaTomy
The study of human anatomy is designed to provide the student with an in-depth understanding of the forms that build the human figure.
Subjects
The Arm
The Torso, Head and Neck The Leg
Projects (for each subject)
  • A series of studies from the Vanderpoel book
  • Various studies from a cast of the flayed limb, from an écorché whole figure cast, and from the
    life-size skeleton
  • Various studies in anatomy from the live model
    The subject of artistic anatomy is crucial to the understanding of the human form. The full anatomy course spans one academic year and includes slide lectures for each subject, a series
    of studies from the Vanderpoel text, and intensive work from the live model. In addition, the students’ understanding of the bones, muscles and tendons is first reinforced with one fully rendered drawing of the limb from an
    écorché cast. This understanding is then challenged as the students are asked to draw the same limb from the live model, but render it as if it were flayed. Eliot Goldfinger’s encyclopedic Human Anatomy for Artists is used as the textbook.

PerSPeCTive
Linear perspective is a study that deals with the relative size and appearance of objects in relation to each other within an illusionary space. Artists have been using linear perspective for constructing this illusion of depth in paintings since antiquity. Besides being a useful drawing tool, it is a discipline that trains and strengthens the mind and forces the student to think in three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface.
The perspective programme at the Angel Academy, Florence, is taught over a two-year period. The first year introduces the student to the figure in perspective and to basic techniques, with a focus towards their use in the model room and in still-life. The second year teaches a measuring point system that involves producing an image from given written and numerical clues.
First-year Topics
1. Introduction to Basic Perspective 2. The Perspective Environment
3. Cube Multiplication and Division 4. Ellipses and Inclined Planes

5. Geometrical Solids and Transparent Constructions 6. Three-Point Perspective and Figures in Perspective
Second-year Topics
1. One-Point Perspective 2. Diagonals of a Square 3. Two-Point Perspective 4. Studio Tricks
5. Inclined Perspective 6. Reflections
7. Shadows

arT hiSToriCal and TeChniCal leCTureS
In a series of two two-hour slide lectures every trimester, the student examines the evolution of painting procedures and the painters’ aims throughout the history of Western art. The subjects include the following:
Venetian Art from 1300 to 1900
The Florentine Renaissance, 1250 to 1550 Caravaggio
Velasquez and van Dyck
17th-Century Dutch Painting
18th-Century British Painting
19th-Century British Painting
19th-Century Italian Painting
19th-Century French Painting
19th-Century American Painting Annigoni
The Angel Academy’s Programme Symbolic Language
Business

BookS
required reading
The Human Figure by John Vanderpoel
Human Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger Perspective for Artists by Rex Vicat Cole
Alla Prima by Richard Schmid
recommended reading
Charles Bargue Drawing Course by Gerald M. Ackerman The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed
Classical Drawing Atelier by Juliette Aristides
Classical Painting Atelier by Juliette Aristides
Mastering Composition by Ian Roberts
Oil Painting Techniques and Materials by Harold Speed
The Artist’s Assistant by Leslie Carlyle
I’d Rather be in the Studio: The Artist’s No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion by Alyson Stanfield Bridgeman’s Complete Guide to Drawing from Life by George Bridgeman
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy by Michael Baxandall
Italian Painters of the Renaissance by Bernard Berenson
The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy by Peter Burke
Florence: Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert
The graduaTe ProgrammeS (Two Years)
There are two Graduate Programmes: Pictorial Composition and Portrait Painting. Each of these
electives takes six trimesters (two academic years) to complete.
PiCTorial ComPoSiTion
Using the textbook written by Michael John Angel, the student passes through a progressive series of exercises, over the course of two academic years (six trimesters). Subjects covered include:
Anomaly and Counterpoint
Principles of Grouping
Compositional Formats
Value Composition,
Colour
Harmonic Palettes
The Compositional Sketch Some Geometrical Grids.
For a full list of subjects, please see the Composition Outline, below. Textbook
Pictorial Composition; the Art of Creating Expression in Painting by Michael John Angel

PorTraiT PainTing
This elective spans two academic years (six trimesters).
Projects
  1. Head and shoulders, sight-size, from life
  2. Head and shoulders, from a photograph
3 Half-length, with hands, sight-size, from life
  1. Half-length, with hands, from photographs
  2. Three-quarter length, with hands and still life, from photos and painted studies
  3. A group portrait, from photographs and painted studies
In addition to the above, a great deal of historical research is done by the student, in order to discover the compositional systems employed by portrait painters at different times in the past. This research includes making several copies from master paintings.
ComPosition: ouTline oF TeXTBook
  1. First Principles
    The Centre; Dominance; Unity and Variety; Anomaly; Counterpoint; Balance, Symmetry and Asymmetry
  2. The Principles of Grouping
    Review of Figure-Drawing Principles; Figure-Drawing Principles as applied to Groups; Massing; Interval; Movement and Dominance; Single-Point Origins
  3. Compositional Formats
    Single-Figure Composition, the L-Shape, the V-shape, the U-shape, a Major Geometrical Figure Backed by Other Geometrical Figures, the Frieze-type, the Diagonal Division with Spill-over, the Large Mass Balanced by a Small Mass
  4. Pathways, Pointers, etc.
    Pathways, Pointers, Radiation and Explosion; Near-Far; Large Flow-Through Lines
  5. Value Composition
    Silhouettes; The Value Keys, Tenebrism, Rembrandt, van Dyck and Holbein schemes; Moving Elements into the Distance
  6. Colour: Theory
    The Colour Wheel; Colour-matching Exercises; Compliments and Near-Compliments; Analogous Colour; Field Colour
  7. Colour: Studio Practice
    Colour Schemes; Essential-Colour Studies; Full-Colour Studies; Field-Colour Underpainting
  8. Palettes
    Some Historical Palettes: an 18th-Century Portrait Painting Palette; the Angel Flesh- Colour Palette; Frank Reilly’s Palette; the Harmonic Palettes, Denman Ross
  9. The Compositional Sketch Pencil Styles, Colour
  10. A Note on Geometry
    The Golden Proportion; the Basic Armature; the Rabattement; the Square-Root Series; Hambidge’s Dynamic Symmetry, and Bouleaux’s The Painter’s Secret Geometry
    Appendix
    The Colour Charts

ProjeCT deSCriPTionS and Timeline
FirST year
First Trimester and half of the Second Trimester
Introduction to Drawing: Charles Bargue
Using the 19th-century drawing course designed by Charles Bargue, students copy three lithographs in graphite. This visual approach to drawing introduces diligence, neatness and accuracy while seeing and copying two-dimensional shapes. The student learns to use abstraction as a tool for realistic drawing.
Pencil Figure Drawing
Introduction to the fundamental stages in drawing the figure: gesture, construct and modeling on a small scale suitable for pencil drawing. The student begins to identify the anatomy of the human body and to render form from bigger concept to smaller. The conscious choices that artists must make become apparent when working with a living, breathing, moving model.
Second half of the Second Trimester and all of the Third Trimester
Cast Drawing
Introduces the student to translating a three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface, employing charcoal. Shapes are observed using the sight-size method. The exercises expose the student to the creation of focus, using edge quality and a controlled amount of detail.
Charcoal Figure Drawing
Introduction to a larger working format: 70 × 50 cm. The emphasis is on line drawing and mass drawing as a preparation for painting. The student continues to focus on the constructive drawing of the pose that follows through the whole process to the completion of a highly finished drawing. This phase teaches students the compression of values to achieve an effect
of light and strong design in an image. Vignettes and looser backgrounds are introduced as an abstract element, allowing the student to experiment with mood.

Second year
Fourth Trimester
Cast Painting
Provides a controlled environment to introduce the student to the mechanics of painting and to the subtleties of colour. Topics such as supports, materials, medium, paint application, drying times, etc. are discussed thoroughly. Students learn to see the variety of colour in a monochrome object and yet paint it within the boundaries of the object’s colour unity.
Live Model
Charcoal work from the live model continues for half the trimester; painting the figure in oils is introduced: the student works en grisaille from sustained poses, each of five or six weeks duration (three hours a day).
Fifth Trimester
Cast Painting
Cast Painting continues.
Figure Painting
This begins with a series of gradated exercises that are designed to introduce the student, step- by-step, to the traditional methods of painting the nude in colour.

Sixth Trimester
Cast Painting and Still-Life Painting
Cast Painting continues; still-life painting begins.
Figure Painting
Figure painting continues, employing poses of 60 hours duration and more.
Third year
Seventh, eighth and ninth Trimesters
Figure Painting
Figure Painting continues, using a limited palette at first, and progressing to a full palette. Several poses are maintained throughout each trimester.
Still-Life Painting
Introduction to design elements and composition during the set up. Students learn to achieve specific colours by choosing the appropriate pigment, and by glazing or scumbling. A more extended palette is introduced, which includes modern pigments. Furthermore, students experiment with brushwork to discover how their use of a specific paint quality creates the desired textures and effects. A fast and efficient production of the final still lifes is encouraged, in order that the student learns to function as a professional artist.
ThroughouT The Three years
Art History
Lectures encompass historical styles and movements and examines their cultural origins and significance. Painting systems and processes from the Italian Renaissance, Dutch Baroque, 18th- century British portrait painters and 19th-century European Academies are discussed.
Human Anatomy for the Artist
The course is divided into three sections of legs, arms and torso. It explains the skeleton and muscle groups, their structure and functions. Students learn the mechanisms and morphology by copying Vanderpoel illustrations, and drawing from casts of flayed figures, as well as anatomy from the live model. In addition to class lectures, a series of video presentations, made for medical students, demonstrate a thorough flaying of the human body: bones, muscles, blood vessels and nervous system.
Perspective
Lectures and exercises facilitate thinking in three dimensions, creating an environment and realizing space around the subject in one-, two- and three-point perspectives. Topics include architectural space, grids, armatures, figures in space, methods of rotating objects from imagination, etc.
Figure Painting (with Jered Woznicki)
Presents a series of exercises designed to gain understanding and control of colour in oil painting. Exercises include monochrome painting to facilitate a purposeful arrangement of values, and poster-like studies to introduce hue and chroma. The students gain control in handling simple, as well as complex, flesh-colour systems of compressed values, coherent hue shifts and gradations of chroma.

Single Figure Composition (with Michael John Angel)
Introduction to a broader range of painting techniques once the student has mastered the Angel painting process. The live model is used to initiate the student into diverse systems of picture making. The student continues to practice the technical skills of naturalistic painting while making conscious design decisions and experimenting with various effects of colour and paint handling.

8
Practical Painting
Consists of a series of short poses with the live model to teach the student to paint quickly and produce a coherent body of work. Successive poses of limited time force the student to re-evaluate their painting procedure in favour of efficiency and reinforces the need for finding a desired appearance across a body of work. Consequently, the student learns to focus on the overall effect and mood that ties consecutive pieces together.
The Language of Painting
The elements of visual language are thoroughly discussed as a means of communicating ideas. While painting from the live model, particular attention is brought to abstract shape design and its character, as well as to field colour and its emotional significance. While experimenting with the theme, students are made aware of the psychological sub-text that their formal design choices instigate. In addition, students learn to identify visual elements in any specific “look” to facilitate the birth of their own style.
The Business of Art
Being a professional painter means painting for money. Painting is a viable profession, and, with the right set of skills, no one has to fall prey to the role of “The Starving Artist.” This topic brings to light many significant misconceptions and teaches students the guidelines that will enable them to function as professionals. Basic strategies are discussed for the presentation of one’s work, promotion, how to approach galleries and how to deal with clients. Self-organization skills, such as time management, calculating pricing, desired productivity, grant writing, market research, legal paperwork, etc., are also discussed.
Portrait Painting
A post-graduate programme in which students study and practice the structure of the skull and the facial features, likeness, capturing the personality of the sitter and the mood of the picture. In addition, the students experiment with setting up the pose, lighting, choosing the clothing and how to manage the live model.
Composition
A post-graduate programme that expands on the basic principles of composing a picture. Students experiment with traditional compositional systems of value and colour from simple, abstract design to complex, multi-focused storytelling. A series of exercises that leads up to major projects explores such topics as value, colour, grouping, geometric grids, etc. Students follow the academic process of picture making from thumbnail line sketches, value and colour studies, detailed studies and the transference of drawings onto the final canvas for execution.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Angel Academy of Art - The Academic Process


This part one of a three part series. Click here for part two and here for part three.

Response to frequently asked questions:

For November through December I'll be staying with my sister, Keinah, a couple hours north of Venice. While there I'll be "the nanny" to my vivacious niece, Claire, and also make art for grant applications and illustration commissions.

In December we'll visit Florence in order to find a single room in a shared apartment for me to rent from January on.

Many things in the city are within walking distance. My uncle kindly provided me with a bike for longer excursions. Public transportation is another handy option. Via a four-hour train ride, I will be able to visit Keinah affordably.

The school is conducted in English. Although, I am currently working on improving my Italian.
(I'll be able to provide more details about the school once there). With the assistance of scholarships, I will be able to complete the 3-year fundamental programme at Angel Academy. Class schedule is 9:30-12:30 and 14:00-17:00 (2:00-5:00) Monday through Friday.

I have no intentions of getting married to Romeo. Please stop asking that question.

Thank you everyone for your kind words/deeds of encouragement and enthusiasm. I intend to keep you posted on the new things I am learning, experiencing, and seeing. Click "Join this site" on the bottom of the page to subscribe. New art will be posted on my website AngeleneArt and on my Facebook page.




Friday, September 28, 2012

Monday, July 23, 2012

Amy Winehouse - Monkey Man


Honestly, this song is pretty obnoxious, yet its bouncy beat is infectious.